A mystery component exploded in my scooter!

[grassulo]

So riding home I heard this really loud bang when I was slowing down for a stop sign. I immediately pulled over, thinking the bike had either had a huge backfire (which it has never done before) or had just blown out a tire.

Upon further inspection, it turned out that this strange little box with 12V on it as it's only marking, had blown the bottom of it out. What had exploded was an electrolytic capacitor inside it, the huge bang being that the compound the box was potted in blocked the vent on the capacitor.

This odd little part connected in series with my stator wires, (one female and one male plug) and then to my electric choke. It looks like they were running the choke off half wave rectified AC, which would make no sense as the choke only draws 3mA when warm, so I don't think it would help much in terms of reducing electrical load on the system to do that.

There is also a single terminal square plug in the main harness, that appears to come off one phase of my stator and was never connected to anything.

What the heck was this mystery box and why was it even there? I have since bypassed it and I'm running my electric choke off a switch so I can allow the bike to fully warm up with it not closing, then turning it on when RPM's raise up and the bike is warm. It would only stay open for a few seconds before and then I would have to rev the bike to warm it up, otherwise it would die, especially in this colder weather.

[qwertydude]

There is sometimes a resistor between the enricher and the ground but from stator to enricher there shouldn't be anything. Post a picture. I'm familiar with a wide range of electronic equipment and might be able to tell you what it was possibly doing in there.

[grassulo]

When i get over to my friends place I'll take a picture of the strange thing. It's in his garage still, where I do most of the work to my scooter since I live in an apartment and my landlord doesn't like me doing work to my scooter in my parking space.

It actually connects through all three stator wires and then to the choke, it was certainly a weird thing to find and when it popped it was quite a bang. The choke seems to work just fine without it, wired to the 12v accessory circuit through a switch.

[qwertydude]

If it connects to all three stator wires that thing that blew up is the regulator. Probably defective or miswired.

[tvnacman]

I would check the charging system ?

John

[qwertydude]

Yup without the charging system you'll probably be sending either nothing or AC to the battery.

I would just in case disconnect the battery. You'd still be able to kickstart it and ride but I wouldn't rely on the kick starter for too long, eventually it'll go bad.

[tvnacman]

The kick starters don't take a kicking well .

John

[h3nry]

My scoot has been strictly started by the kick starter for over 6 months and it was still going ( this is including the hard start issues and other long winded kicking sessions) . The issue comes about because the kick-stopper makes you rip the teeth off the kick-arm. To stop that from happening take the kick starter off and move it so when at the bottom of the kick stroke you barely don't hit the stopper.( it is ok to hit it but having your weight all hitting it at speed is bad)